The Grand Egyptian Museum

In cooperation with Radko Květ and Karel Doležel. The museum’s east entry wall symbolically opens towards Nile waters and the Sun, the vital source of all life, at the same time. Waters and light connect the continuity of each human activity, the inseparable foundations of ancient Egyptian culture. The museum is located below the ground as related to the historical complex of pyramids and mastaba fields roofed by only a wavy partly sand-bound roof. The entire wealth of the museum collections and other service areas are hidden behind the wall open to the sun, yet at the same time ambivalently closed. This is the principle of a dam holding back the enormous value of ancient Egyptian monuments, its history and extensive culture concentrated at one place, yet of also the endless time flowing through the museum. This is an ideological transcription of the Wadi Garawi dam built in the mountains above the east edge of the Nile valley at the time the Giza pyramids were built.